In which I describe my tool shed, days off, and everything on my pants.

The last few days have found my team working with an organization called New York Cares that is mucking and gutting homes in Rockaway.

The operation is based out of a small parking lot where a cool old man named Gordon parked his bus/mobile home and converted it into the dispatch center. Homeowners come by and fill out a request for work, then Dispatch assigns the work order to a team of volunteers who go out and muck and gut for the homeowner. My job in this process is to check out tools to each team of volunteers. The team lead comes to the tool section, shows me their work order, and I help them find the tools they need for the project. Here's a picture of the area that I'm in charge of:

And the interior of my storage pod:

We have hammers, crowbars, flat bars, mallets, channel locks, crescent wrenches, sledgehammers, rakes, shovels, brooms, chainsaws, circle saws, reciprocating saws... you name it, I probably have it.

Having something like this to be in charge of has been a lot of fun. I got one day of mucking and gutting out in the field, but being in charge of tools is more rewarding to me.

We have gotten just two days off since being in New York, and we're getting our third one tomorrow. I rode the subway for the first time, saw Central Park, hung out in Times Square, ate at the first pizzeria in the US, and went to the 9/11 memorial.

And now for a new segment I'm calling Stuff On My Pants. It's a list of all the things that have been spilled or wiped on my BDU pants since New York (and yes, BDU stands for Battle Dress Uniform). So here you go:

Oil

Gas

Blood

Sweat

Snot

Saliva

Canned pea juice

Pear syrup

Turkey juice

Applesauce

Raspberry preserves

Rainwater

Tea

Coffee

Rust

Mud

Ink

Drywall dust

Gross, right? I guess it's just bound to happen when you work in conditions like this every day and only have two pairs of pants.

It looks like I'll be flying back to Washington soon for winter break! I'm looking forward to wearing my own clothes, leaving my shirt untucked, sleeping in late, eating food that isn't the cheapest stuff in the store, and, of course, seeing all of my wonderful friends and family. I'll be sad to leave New York, but it'll be nice to be home. See you soon!

Canvassing the Rockaways

My team has spent the last few days in the Rockaways, which is an area of Queens. Our job was to go door to door and ask residents and businesses if they had gas or electricity or needed any other kind of help. Compared to the Rockaways, the rest of New York looks like a five-star hotel. To give you an idea of what that means, here are some of the things that I've seen in the last two days:

The Empire State

Today is day 9 in New York city. Yesterday was Thanksgiving day. Right now I'm sitting on a counter in my teams housing location. Spread out in front of me are maybe 40 cots that AmeriCorps members are sleeping in, and there are 20 more in another room. Two NCCC teams are here, but the majority of those cots are filled by state conservation corps members- there are groups from Utah, Montana, New Mexico, and Washington! A lot of them actually extended their contracts in order to serve here in New York. We're staying in the Electrical Worker's Union Building, in Queens. No showers and only a tiny kitchen, but it's starting to feel like home.
We flew in to New York last Wednesday. I took this picture as we came in over the city:

New York is incredible. It really is a beautiful city, even in the state it's in right now, with so much damage yet to be repaired. 

In the week of work that my team has done here, we've spent time in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Coney Island. Our first day was with a church on Coney Island that has been turned in to a distribution center, where people can pick up food, diapers, medical supplies, bananas...

We unloaded pallets of bananas that first day and handed them out to people as that came through the line. There are close to two thousand pounds of bananas in that picture.

Day 2 was at a nearby distribution center on Coney. While some of my team worked the line, handing out food and hand warmers, I helped to organize donated food into bags to be handed out. A man there told me about how the storm pushed massive piles of sand up into the streets. It has to be swept out block by block. Parts of Coney look like there was never sand there, but the next street over still has a fine layer of it over everything.

Day 3 was with what now seems to be our permanent project, working with the Red Cross. We spent Saturday going house to house in Queens, giving out relief bags and asking people what they needed. Some of the areas we went through were hit pretty hard.  Cars had been thrown around in the storm and filled with sand and water. Houses that looked fine on the outside were completely destroyed on the inside.  One woman told us that her basement flooded seven feet in seven minutes during the storm. Some of it was hard to see and hard to hear about.

Days 4, 6, 7 and 8 of work were also spent with the Red Cross, though since that first day I haven't done any more door to door work with them. We've been loading supplies from semi trucks onto smaller trucks that then get sent out all over New York. We're loading things like water, coolers full of food, adult diapers, baby diapers, baby food, work gloves, face masks, and hand sanitizer. I would like to be interacting with the community more, but I really enjoy working with the Red Cross. They've been doing work like this for a long time, and they've found a system that works. Plus, they're always giving us food!

Day 5, which wasn't with the Red Cross, was spent on Coney Island again. Some of Blue 1 worked at the church, but Alyssa, Lindsey, Anne Louise, Lois, Joey and I had another project. We spent the day with a woman from an organization called People's Relief, going door to door in two predominantly Russian speaking apartment buildings. People's Relief is an organization that began specifically in response to Hurricane Sandy. They're still young organization trying to find their feet, so the process that day was hectic. The woman from People's Relief was fluent in Russian and thankfully Alyssa knows some, but the rest of us did not. I did learn how to say "food!" for the day, but I've already forgotten. We went from door to door asking if the residents needed food or blankets, and handing out medical information. The buildings still didn't have reliable electricity, so for a bit we were walking down dark hallways with flashlights. 

Since Thanksgiving was yesterday, everyone wants to give us Thanksgiving meals. Four meals in the last three days have been thanksgiving meals, and I'm about to eat leftovers for dinner! A church in Brooklyn provided Thanksgiving dinner to all of the AmeriCorps teams in the area, including the Conservation Corps teams, another organization gave everyone living at the union building Thanksgiving dinner, the Red Cross gave us Thanksgiving lunch yesterday, and our housing point of contact provided dinner again for last night. So much turkey! 

Since I'm a van driver I've had to share some of the responsibility of driving through New York. When we arrived in New York my team got a new blue 15 passenger van. We named him Chaos. (If we get a third van, her name will be Pandemonium. That was my idea. Credit where credit is due!) 

Anyway, we've been sharing driving responsibility here, like always. Kevin drives the most though. He's also the most agressive. In fact, he's already been in an accident. We were trying to get out of our parking space after our first Thanksgiving lunch, and he backed into the car parked behind him. In his defense, we were parked on a hill, so either you barely push the gas and it doesn't move, or you push too much and it lurches back. It lurched. The van went silent. Kevin leans out of the window and calls back to Jake, who was backing him up: "Is there any damage?" Jake looks carefully, then yells back, "No!" So Kevin turns back to the wheel and says "Okay let's go!" Joey had to say, "Kevin, stop the car!" And then we sat in our parking spot while he filled out the form for an accident.

We've been working for eight days straight now, and we're starting to wear thin. But as tired as we are, I know it can't even compare to what so many people here are going through. Parts of the city look fine, but as we've traveled around to our work sites, we've seen some areas that still need a lot of work. For two weeks after Sandy hit, none of the trash system was running, and there are still piles of garbage on the street. There are downed trees everywhere. People are still having difficulty getting heat and electricity in some areas. Cars, houses, and businesses are destroyed, boats are upside down in rivers or thrown on to land. If you walk down a residential street you can see piles of people's water-damaged belongings out in their yards, or concrete and sheetrock from homeowners gutting their basements. Some of the stories I hear are truly heartbreaking. During our first day with the Red Cross a woman told Anne Louise and me a story about a family who got in their car to leave the area right before the storm surge hit. The whole family and their dog drowned when the water came rushing in. 

Some more teams from the Pacific Region are now being sent to New Jersey. I'm so glad that our region decided to increase our support out here, it is badly needed. Our team is also hoping to shift to a more long-term project soon. Distributing food and supplies is very important in the short term, but it doesn't really solve the problem. We are also hoping for a day off soon. The rumor is that we'll get one on Sunday!

In Limbo On Standby

My team was scheduled to leave at 10 o'clock a.m. after induction Thursday morning. Instead Joey called a meeting in the 3rd floor lounge. By this point we know exactly what he was going to tell us, but we waited to hear it anyway.

The night before induction we had a community meeting with all of the staff and Corps Members. They congratulated us on completing CTI (Corps Training Institute), gave a few announcements and a couple speeches. Then they dropped a bomb. They told us that the Pacific Region would be sending 70 Corps Members to the east coast. They couldn't tell us much. They had no idea what members would be doing, or how they would get us there, or how long we would stay. All they knew was that of more than 600 AmeriCorps members already in New York, 160 are about to graduate from the program and go home, leaving a volunteer gap that needs to be filled. The Pacific and Southwest Regions are in the right position to fill that gap, so each are calling off projects to deploy members east instead. And of course they would be calling off low priority projects first.

So when Joey called a team meeting to tell us we weren't going to be leaving for Oregon that morning, no one was very surprised.

My team is currently on standby until Tuesday. By that time, if they haven't figured out transportation to New York, we will go to Oregon and complete our original project. But what they want to do is put us and six other teams on planes and send us to the east coast, where we will stay on a huge boat in the NYC harbor and serve the city as best we can.
I have already said how much I want to go east, so I won't repeat it. This almost feels like a dream though, and I keep expecting to wake up from it. All of the other teams have left on spike, leaving us here in a strange ethereal limbo. The bags we packed for Oregon are now spread all over our rooms, our fridge is an eclectic assortment of food, and our days are unscheduled and purposeless.
All I want is to know what's going to happen next.

Packing up, heading out

My team is leaving tomorrow to head north to the small town of Silverton, OR. The last few days have been a whirlwind of planning and packing and cleaning so that we can be ready to go at 8:00 tomorrow.

As VST coordinator I had to make sure that Mayhem was ready for the long drive. Joey took her in for a car wash, brake check and tire rotation. When he got back the whole team helped pull out the seats so that we could brush out the dirt and mop the floor. Mopping the van sounded like a crazy idea, but by the time it was done Mayhem looked as good as the first day we got her.
I was responsible for inspecting the van. I made sure the seat belts worked. I wrote down every dent and scratch, and the small chip in the windshield. I made sure we had jumper cables, tire chocks, and triangles. I checked the oil, wiper fluid, and coolant. I checked the pressure on our fire extinguisher and our tires. I even learned how to check the belt. I swear that by the end of this year I'm going to know more about cars than I ever bothered to remember before.

In order to deploy to our various projects, each team has to do a project brief. Basically, each person had to prepare a few sentences on an assigned talking point, then as a team we gave the presentation to Blue 2 and our Unit Leader, Andy. Shaunacy and I were assigned to talk about our living situation at the gardens, and how we would prepare to adjust to it.

After the brief, we just had to pack, and pass our room and kitchen inspections. Shaunacy and I have already packed our red bags and passed our room inspections. The kitchen is clean, and our inspection is scheduled for 30 minutes from now. Tonight we will graduate from the training program, and tomorrow we finally head north! I am so excited to take the next step, start the real work, and see what these next nine months are going to be about.

The Big Reveal

Joey finally told my team where we're going for our first spike! After we finished dinner and general announcements he laid our project briefs upside down on the table, and when they were all laid out he said "Flip!" and we all turned them over.
Blue 1 is going to the Oregon Garden! It's in Siverton, Oregon, which is about an hour south from Portland. We will be working to "conserve, rehabilitate and improve" individual gardens, wetlands, and an old oak grove. We will also be upgrading and installing new trails and making educational signs for the garden.

There is, however, a small possibility that my team could be sent to the east coast to help recover from Sandy. Jose, our region director, told us that they were preparing our  current sponsors for the possibility that we will have to leave. Every Pacific Region  Corps Member filled out Red Cross volunteer registration paperwork last night that would let us deploy quickly if need be. The Pacific Region is farthest west of all five campuses, but we are actually the third that would be called in. Two of the five regions currently have FEMACorps Members at them, who are doing administrative work with FEMA, rather than the hands-on work we would potentially be deployed for.
I would really love to go east. The work I'll be doing in Oregon will be valuable, but there is just no comparison to the difference we could make on the east coast right now.

19 days in.

I hope you're ready for a long read, because this post is long overdue. The wireless on campus is so overloaded that posting is an ordeal I would rather avoid. There have been so many Ameriventures in the last week though! I'm going to do my best to fill you in. 

First of all, I haven’t said much about my team yet.  I’m part of Blue 1, which is 10 members and one TL strong.  Here’s a group picture:

From right to left, the back row is Kevin, Anne Louise, Jake, Alysssa, me, and Dylan, and the pile in front is Lindsey, Aketheia, Shaunacy, and Lois! Our Team Leader Joey wasn’t there at the time, but I’m sure you’ll see pictures of him later.

This picture was taken right after our team completed our first project together. We had to build a box to put in Mayhem, our 15 pass van. (Yes, we named her Mayhem.) This picture is also a great example of our uniforms. I actually don’t mind them at all. It’s kind of nice not having to think about what to wear every day. It also makes us look pretty official. We have to wear Amerigear anytime we are on duty- even during training and traveling.

Speaking of travelling, we recently returned from a trip to the California Redwoods, where we did some service at a Boys and Girls Club camp called Camp Mendocino.  Apparently the Pacific Region campus and Camp Mendocino have a long-standing relationship. We get to cycle each of the units through to do some teambuilding and training, and they get a workforce willing to help them with whatever they need. The camp has 2,000 acres of land, which is an insane amount to keep maintained. They rely on a lot of volunteer work throughout the year to keep things running smoothly. We were asked to clear out the drainage ditches on the side of the road, so that when it rains the water runs through the ditches instead of washing out the road. Our team cleared out close to a mile of the trench.

We also got to spend about half a day on their climbing wall and high and low rope courses! I have done low ropes a few times, and spent a lot of time on climbing walls, but I’ve never had the opportunity to do high ropes. It was one of the most exhilarating and terrifying experiences of my life. We got harnessed and helmeted, and then the instructors gave us lobster claws, which are huge carabineers that hook on to cables running from tree to tree so that you can go on the elements without danger of falling 15 feet to the ground. After the Giant’s Ladder to get up into the course, the first element that I did was called the Catwalk. It was just a cable running from the main platform to another tree, with two ropes on either side to hold on to. The cable wobbled from side to side as I walked, and when I made it to the other side it took me about five minutes to stop shaking. After that, I was fine! I went across one that was a bunch of swings, and another with ropes hanging down so that as you walked on the cable you had to grab one and then the next like Tarzan. But the best part of the high ropes course was the zip line. It went through the trees and then the view opened up over the river and you could see so far. I would have done it again if I could!

We also decided team positions last week! Basically, every person on the team has a responsibility of some sort throughout the year.  The Environmental Liaison makes sure we are sustainable, the Corps Ambassador Program Representatives (CAPpers) recruit new members in our project communities, the Media Rep writes press releases and documents our work, the Project Outreach Liaison (POL’s) looks for Independent Service Project opportunities, the Peer Helpers act as counselors and mediate conflict within the team, the Physical Training coordinator plans our workouts, the Vehicle, Safety and Tools (VST) Coordinator keeps track of tools and keeps the van in good shape, the Service Learning Initiator (STI) coordinate service learning opportunities on spike, and the Life After AmeriCorps Rep helps everyone helps team members with career development. 

I ended up as…VST. Super exciting, right? I get to check Mayhem’s tire pressure and make sure her oil gets changed! Actually, I don't mind that I got it. I’ll probably learn a lot about cars. And as it turns out, I’m also secondary for Media Rep, which is what I was hoping for. Dylan and I are sharing it. He wants to be a sports writer and I want to be an editor or literary agent, so it was really important to both of us.

We also got specialty roles, and we started the training for that today. The three boys and I are doing chainsaw training. Yikes. We sat through almost eight hours of training today, just going over safety, the parts of a chainsaw, and maintenance. My notebook is covered in notes and diagrams of the proper way to cut down a tree. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be letting the boys take care of any chain sawing that needs doing, but the competitive part of me definitely wants to show them up and be a better sawyer than them.  I’m going out on the field on Thursday so we’ll see how that goes.

Thankfully, we got a chance to get out of the classroom recently- last Saturday was Make a Difference Day! The entire campus went out into the Sacramento community and spent the day doing some hard work. My team went to the Sparrow Community Garden with Blue 2, where we cleared out some empty plots, spread mulch around the outside of the garden, and did some intense weed pulling by the nearby trail. Our project supervisors were a hilarious and incredibly kind old couple who lived in the nearby house. On our lunch break they gave several of us leadership advice, which consisted of them acting like NCCC members who were slacking off while we tried to make them go back to work.

We ended up finishing at the Sparrow Community Garden earlier than expected, so we were asked to help Silver 7 at another project spike, where just about everything was named McKinley. They were at the McKinley Library on McKinley Boulevard, near McKinley park. Crazy, right? They needed some help pulling out some stubborn plants, so Blue 1 got it done!

After Make a Difference Day ended we went back to the dorms, where most people crashed and went to bed. But seven of us decided to do something a little crazy. We went to San Francisco! It was all really last minute. We got our tickets the day before, and didn’t figure out where we were going to stay until about three hours before we got on the bus. I’m not even going to talk about the process of getting to San Fran, because it would take way too long. Suffice it to say that crossing the bay bridge and seeing the city skyline finally spread out in front of us with the sun setting behind it was the most beautiful sight I could have imagined. We had to split up our group of seven into two different hostels. I and four others stayed in the Green Tortoise Hostel. What we didn't realize when we planned the trip is that Halloween is on Wednesday, making last weekend…(drumroll, please)...Halloweekend. And the Green Tortoise just happened to be on the street with all of the clubs. Walking to the hostel was like walking through a zoo, or maybe a circus. Flashing neon signs, an adult movie shop, girls wobbling drunkenly on high heels in their too-tight dresses, men in costumes only they understood, and bouncers with bored eyes waving people through. Its surroundings may have been pretty sketch, but the hostel itself was wonderful. The five of us shared a room with a double bunk bed. Hunter claimed the floor, Ryan and Connor snuggled in the top bunk, and Anne Louise and I took the bottom. We woke up the next morning at 8:00 (sleeping in!), had a slow, lazy breakfast, and met Alyssa and Eric to start our San Fran adventuring. We wandered through Chinatown and Golden Gate Park, went to an observation tower that showed San Fran laid out all around us, ate lunch at a tiny local Thai place with incredible curry, walked partway across the Golden Gate Bridge, and had gelato and sorbet at a place on the waterfront. Then it was back to the greyhound station to catch our ride home. It was a cazy whirlwind weekend, but I had the time of my life.

And finally... everyone has been finding out their first projects. We know ours is in Oregon, but we don't know where yet! Hopefully Joey will tell us in the next couple of days. I'll fill you in as soon as I know! 

Miles and Mashed Potatoes

The days here are strangely difficult to keep track of. I've been here just seven days, but it already feels like weeks. Our days are stuffed to the brim with training and activities and minimal sleep, so they all run together.
We did the first baseline fitness test on Saturday. I'm still sore. It consisted of some warm up stretching, two minutes each of sit-ups and pushups ( I did 24 and 17) the 1.5 mile run, and a stretch test. The sit-ups and pushups could have been better, but with how many of both I've had to do in the past few days, I'm sure I'll get there.
The thing I really wanted to focus on, though, was the run! When I first found out about it, the idea of running that much scared me to death. It was the thing that made me most worried about this whole experience. But with even the small amount of running that I did at home, I felt like I was moderately prepared for the run. Not only was my time a 17:08 (which would mean about an 11:05 minute mile), I ran every step of the way. That's right. Not a single walking break.
When I started, I was about in the middle of the pack chatting with Ryan. But as soon as the time started, I could tell I wouldn't last the whole way at that pace, so I fell behind. A little while in I ended up running next to a girl going about the same pace, and we stuck together for the rest of the run. It was so good to have her there! Every time that I thought about walking, she would happen to say something like "Wow, look how far we are!" Or "We're setting such a good pace!" and then I would get a new burst of motivation. When it was over I felt so good! I exceeded the expectations I had for myself by a long shot.

The first week of food was catered by an outside company, but the teams are now taking charge of their own meals. My team, Blue 1, teamed up with Blue 2 to make dinner on alternating days. Within each team, people rotate the cooking responsibility. That means that usually two or three people take charge of making dinner for 22 people. I ended up volunteering to make the very first dinner with my teammate Kevin. We decided to make fajitas! Our whole team went to the store the night before to grab food, so Kevin and I wandered around the store with a cart and picked out everything we needed.
We started cooking at 5:30, cutting up our our ten bell peppers, three onions, and two huge packages of chicken. Kevin and I worked really well together as a team, which bodes well for the next ten months. We worked a solid two hours chopping and seasoning and stirring and problem-solving. It was wonderful. Not to mention that those fajitas turned out FANTASTIC, and I wasn't the only one who thought so. Jake walked up to me halfway through dinner and said "I actually like these peppers! My mom can never get me to eat peppers but these are really good!" Success.
I also helped out two members of my team by making mashed potatoes last night. We used a whole bag of potatoes, and I'm amazed I didn't get blisters from peeling them. I dumped chunks of the potatoes in water, let them boil for a bit, then mashed them and added milk and butter and salt. They were probably the best mashed potatoes I have ever made.
There must be something about cooking for a large group, or maybe just for other people in general, that makes it taste so good. It is incredibly satisfying to put something on the table that you know people are going to enjoy. I'm looking forward to future cooking experiences here!

AmeriCorps Duffle Bag Decorating

I realized as I went to bed last night that I dropped the ball on you guys. I promised I would let you know what I ended up doing with my duffle bag, but I never did! 

It took me about a week to figure out what I wanted to do. The instructions said that our name had to be written down the side and on the bottom of the bag. Past that, we could do anything as long as it was tasteful. I wanted it to be well made, and I wanted it to reflect who I am in some way. In the end I decided to sew patches on and around the pocket, and sew my name down the side. So I got all my supplies together:

And started sewing! I was really glad for that thimble by the end. The fabric is so tough to sew through! This is what the pocket area ended up looking like:

And my name down the side:

Here I am, working diligently to get it done! 

Tidbits from Day One

While I was working on my previous post I could overhear two guys were talking to each other close by. The combination of their age, the way they were sitting with an empty seat between them, and how they were interacting like strangers with something in common just screamed AmeriCorps. I said hello to them and less than ten minutes later two more members arrive. In the end I believe we had seven AmeriCorps members on my plane out of Sea-Tac.

On the plane, I was sitting in front of a mother and her two sons. They were playing with Play-Dough when I sat down. I frequently felt tiny feet digging into the back of my chair, but the following interaction made it all worth it:
The mother: "Is that an apple?" (Silence. He must have nodded.) "Uh huh, it is? Do you know how to spell apple?"
He recites the letters slowly but with conviction; "A...P...E...L...L...Y!"
After a slight hesitation the mother says, "...that's pretty close!"

I got off the plane first and dashed to the bathroom, thereby loosing the rest of the group. I felt bad, but it was kind of urgent. When I finally got to the Baggage Claim there were two staff members waiting at the bottom of the escalator. I ended up on the first van shuttle out of the airport, with the peppy Gold 1 team leader driving.

When we got to the campus we got name tags, paperwork, ID cards, electronic cards to let us in buildings, and lunch. I walked out of the main building with two other members, and we sat down at a table and invited anyone who walked by to join us. At one point there were nine of us squished around the tiny square table. I was really impressed by how open and friendly everyone was. I had just met these people, but we were already interacting like old friends, though most of the conversation revolved around where people were from.

After lunch we had nothing to do until the 5:00 meeting, so a bunch of us walked over to the Exchange, which is a store kind of like Target except tax-free for military people. We get in too, even though we aren't exactly military. We wandered around, chatted and joked, and picked up the things we didn't pack.

I spent the next couple of hours hanging out in the dorm with three guys who are also on Blue team with me. There are about 280 AmeriCorps members, who are divided into four groups with an identifying color: Blue, Green, Gold, and Silver. Those groups are then divided into about seven teams of 10, and each team has a team leader. I'm in Blue 1, and my team leader is Joey.

When we finally had our meeting I was surprised by how many people were there. I guess I just underestimated what 280 members plus 40 staff looks like. The meeting wasn't that eventful, but after that we had dinner and finally met our teams all at once. I'm a little nervous about my team. I don't really know how I feel about any of them yet. We are still missing two latecomers as well, so hopefully they show up tomorrow morning!

After that it was back to the dorm to listen to more music with Connor, Hunter, and Ryan, and a few other people who popped in and out. Ryan and I had some bonding time over making tea, too, so that was nice. We have plans for future tea parties. They're going to rock.

I'm already loving it here so much. I've met so many incredible people in just the last twelve hours! I don't want to forget any of you at home though (as if I could!) so if you want to send me anything (hint, hint, wink, wink), here is my address in Sacramento. Any letters you send to this address will be forwarded to wherever I am at the time.

McKinley Theobald, Class 19, Blue 1
AmeriCorps NCCC
3427 Laurel St
McClellan, CA 95652

Parting Thoughts

So here I am in  Sea-Tac. the Airport has free wifi so I'm sitting at gate D6, drafting my last post before I get on that plane to Sacramento.
I've always loved airports. They're crossroads. So many people come to airports knowing that touchdown will find them not only in a new city but in a new phase of their life. That's what I'm facing now. I know I could turn around, miss my flight, go back to college winter quarter, and keep living the life I already have. But this is something that I've wanted for years and it's finally starting. I couldn't bear to turn back now.
So I guess I'll wrap this up, there are other AmeriCorps people here that I should talk to. I love you, I'll miss you. Here goes.

Three weeks, and it's getting real.

Things are starting to speed up! I got my duffle bag in the mail not too long ago- here's a picture:

These things are huge. Obviously. I don't think I'll have any trouble fitting what I need in it! We are allowed to decorate it, so I'll put another picture up once I figure that out and make it happen.

In other news, I got my travel information. I'll be leaving Sea-Tac at 8:25am on Ocober 10th. That's in exactly three weeks. Where did all of the time go?

"Ameri-what?"

I'm frequently surprised by how little most people know about AmeriCorps. I've had to explain it to so many people that I know the conversation by heart...

Parent/Friend: McKinley, this is my friend _______!
Stranger: It's nice to meet you!
Me: It's so nice to meet you too!
....followed by polite conversation, which eventually leads to:
S: So where are you going to school?
M: I'm going to Western Washington University, up in Bellingham. I love it there!
S: How wonderful! My friend/son/daughter/cousin/friend's friend/aunt/parent went/goes there as well! When do you go back?
M: Well, actually... I'm taking a year off.
S: Oh?
M: Yeah, I'm doing this program called AmeriCorps, Have you heard of it?
S: No, I haven't...
M: Oh. Well....it's a ten month volunteer service program. I start in October.

This, of course, opens a floodgate of questions:

Ameri-what?
AmeriCorps. It's pronounced Ameri-Core. I'm not dead, so please, please, please, don't say Ameri-Corpse. The -ps is silent.

What sort of work will you do?
It could be a wide variety of things. AmeriCorps identifies five categories of service that I could be doing:
1. Natural and other disasters 
2. Infrastructure improvement
3. Environmental stewardship and conservation
4. Energy conservation
5. Urban and rural development

Do you know where they're sending you?
I got placed in the Pacific Region, so I'll be starting in Sacramento, CA. I'll be at the AmeriCorps campus there for a month of training before we're ready to start projects. I won't know the location of my first project until after I get to Sacramento and we are arranged into teams.

So will you go out of the country at all?
No. It's called AmeriCorps for a reason.

How long is it?
Um... I already said it was 10 months. I'm not kidding.

So if it's volunteer they don't pay you, right?
Actually, I'll get a living stipend throughout the program, and if I complete the program I'll get an Education Award of around $5,000, which can be used to pay for school.

Do you know anyone else who's going?
Nope! That's part of the excitement! There will be people in California from all over the country. I'm so excited to meet them all!

But... aren't you scared?
No. Nervous, maybe, but I'm not scared. I feel like I understand what I'm getting in to. I feel prepared. I think the right word for my emotional state right now would be anticipation. So much anticipation has been building up since I got the email... I think I might burst.

...aaannd my personal favorite:
Are you out of your f**king mind? Why in the world would you do that?!
Hahaha. Yeah, I might be. The thing is, sometimes I'm still not sure why I'm going. What reason is big enough to leave my family, my friends from college and my life in Bellingham? What motivates me to say yes to ten months of work with people I've never met when I don't even know where we'll be or what we'll be doing?
I think I have two answers.
1. Adventure. I have three years left of college, and after that, what? Travel? Will I have the money for that? I doubt it. I have to take this opportunity while I have it at my fingertips. There's no point to waiting.
2. Time to think. I still don't know what I want to do with my life right now.  I'm currently on track to major in Environmental Studies, but by the end of last year, I started to wonder if that was really right for me. I'm hoping that a year off with AmeriCorps will give me some time to see the world, figure out my own goals, and maybe find a direction for my life.

S: Well that sounds fascinating. Good luck in San Francisco!
M: ...Sacramento. But thanks.

Running Lessons

I went on a run today. Well, more of a slow jog. And really, I was walking about 60% of it. It’s a start though, right?

Part of the first month of my training in Sacramento will be Physical Training, and part of that is something they call "baseline fitness assessments". The first baseline testing involves a 1.5 mile run, sit ups, push ups, and a flexibility test. 

Now, I'm not a runner. Ask me to hike four miles uphill? You bet I will. Ask me to swim 500 yds? No problem. But ask me to run even half a mile, and I start freaking out. So when I saw the requirement for a 1.5 mile timed run, I knew I had some preparation work to do. I bought a pair of running shoes and some new socks, and today marks the first day that I become a runner.

Surprisingly, I liked it a lot. When you aren’t running around in circles on a track there are things to see and people to greet. It was sunny but breezy. My new shoes were springy and comfortable. I think that if I get in the habit of running in the next month, I might be able to run a mile and a half by the time I get to Sacramento. 

I am an AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done.

Dear friends, family, strangers...

My journey with AmeriCorps will officially start on October 10th, 2012, when I arrive on the Sacramento California campus. I am starting this blog to keep track of everything that I go through as an NCCC member, both to keep everyone at home updated and to be a reference for future AmeriCorps applicants. 

I'm sure a lot of you are dying to know what I'm getting myself in to. To tell the truth, so am I. As I prepare to say goodbye to all of you, I keep asking myself if I made the right decision. I'm about to leave everything I know and everyone I love, for TEN MONTHS of hard work with people I've never met. For those of you unfamiliar with the program, I'll explain. I am participating in something called AmeriCorps NCCC. It's a ten-month program dedicated to community service within the United States, often described as the "Domestic Peace Corps". It's specifically for men and women ages 18-24 . You can learn more about it here. A few of my role models from the camp that I work at are NCCC graduates, and hearing about it from them planted the seed. I applied after senior year in high school, but I didn't make it then and went to college instead. I applied again, not really expecting to get in. But then I got the email.
When I saw it, the first thing I did was call my mom. She picked up and said, "Hey, honey. What's going on? How are you?" I stuttered back, "G-g-great!" (I was already choking up) and then spit out the good news. "I got in to AmeriCorps!" And from there I became an absolute mess, crying and laughing and hiccuping as she congratulated me. That weekend she came up to visit me at school, we talked it over, and I confidently accepted my placement to the Pacific Region.

Since even I have trouble remembering what the Pacific Region looks like, here's a map. The Pacific Region includes all of the states below colored blue. That means I could potentially be sent anywhere from Hawaii to Montana and Wyoming! How cool is that!? Well, maybe not Wyoming. But I would LOVE to visit Alaska.

 

I'm really looking forward to being a part of this. I know I'm going to miss all of you back home, living your normal lives without me (and I not-so-secretly hope you will miss me too), but I really feel like I'm going to be doing some good in the world, and I think it will be good for me too. 

Send me letters?

Hugs and kisses,

McKinley

AmeriCorps Member Pledge:
I will get things done for America - to make our people safer, smarter, and healthier.
I will bring Americans together to strengthen our communities.
Faced with apathy, I will take action.
Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground.
Faced with adversity, I will persevere.
I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond.
I am an AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done.